Windhaven - Страница 41

Maris put an arm about her for support and led her to the judges’ table, where Shalli looked up, concerned. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” said Maris, easing Sena into a seat. “Val will not fly today,” she continued, swinging around to face the judges. “Last night he was attacked and beaten at the tavern where he had a room. An arm and a leg were broken.”

All of the judges looked shocked. “How terrible,” Shalli said. The Easterner swore, the Outer Islander shook his head, and the Landsman of Skulny rose. “This is dreadful. I won’t allow this on my island. We’ll find whoever did it, you have my promise on that.”

“A flyer did it,” Maris said, “or paid for it, anyway. They broke his right arm and his right leg. One-Wing. You understand.”

Shalli frowned. “Maris, this is a horrid thing, but no flyer would do such a thing. And if you mean to imply that Corm would—”

“Do you have proof a flyer was involved?” the Easterner interrupted.

“I know the tavern where Val One-Wing was staying,” the Landsman said. “The Iron Axe, was it not? That is a very bad place, with the worst sort of patrons, rough people. It could have been anyone. A drunken fight, a jealous lover, a gambling quarrel. I’ve seen many beatings come before me from that place.”

Maris stared at him. “You’ll never find who did it, no matter what you promise,” she said. “That isn’t what concerns me. I want to take Val’s wings back to him tonight.”

“Val’s—wings?”

“I’m afraid,” the Southerner said, “he must wait and try again next year. I am sorry he was hurt when he was so close to winning.”

“Close?” Maris looked the length of the table, found the box she sought, picked it up and rattled it at them. “Nine black stones to one white. That is more than close. Val had won. Even if he lost five to nothing today, he had won.”

“No,” Shalli said stubbornly. “Corm deserves his chance. I won’t have you cheat him of it for One-Wing, no matter how sorry I feel for him. Corm is very good at the gates. He might have won ten to nothing, two stones from each of us, and then he would have kept his wings.”

“Ten to nothing,” Maris said. “How likely is that?”

“It is possible,” Shalli said.

“It is,” echoed the Easterner. “We can’t give the victory to One-Wing. It would not be fair to Corm, who has flown well for many years. I think we must declare Val forfeit.”

Heads were bobbing up and down the table, but Maris only smiled. “I was afraid you might take this position.” She put her hands on her hips and defied them. “But Val will have his wings. Luckily there is a precedent. You set it yourselves last night, with S’Rella and Garth. Let the score stand and the match continue. Summon Corm.

“I will fly proxy for Val.”

And she knew they would not deny her.

Maris got her wings and joined the mill of contestants, impatient and increasingly nervous.

The gates had been erected during the night, nine flimsy wooden constructions planted firmly in the sand, in a course demanding a series of difficult turns and tacking maneuvers. The first gate, straight out from the flyers’ cliff, consisted of two tall blackwood poles, each some forty feet high, set fifty feet apart in the sand. A rope had been tied from the top of one pole to the top of the other. To score, the flyer had to glide through that gate. Easy enough, but the next gate was only a few yards farther down the beach, not straight ahead but off to one side, so the flyer had to angle quickly before shooting past it. And the second gate was smaller, the poles just a little bit shorter and set just a little bit closer together. So it went, the course wandering out into the shallows and then veering sharply back onto land, a twisting, wing-snapping course, with each of the nine gates smaller than the one before, until the ninth and final gate, two poles barely eight feet off the ground, set exactly twenty-one feet apart. A flyer’s wingspan was twenty feet. No one had ever flown more than seven gates. Even that was no mean task; of all the flyers to try the gates this morning, the best score was six, and that had been flown by the phenomenal Lane.

Challengers traditionally flew first in this test; the flyer was given the courtesy of knowing what score he had to beat. Wings on her shoulders, Maris watched the Woodwingers make their attempts.

Sher dove straight from the cliff through the first gate, coming in barely under the rope, banked sharply toward the second but continued to descend, fast, too fast. Panicking, the young Woodwinger leveled off quickly to avoid hitting the ground, and suddenly started to rise, passing over the second gate instead of through it. The flyer that Sher challenged managed only two gates, but that was enough for the victory.

Leya, watching Sher, chose a different strategy. She leapt from the cliff to circle widely above the beach, dropping down gradually so that she’d pass through the first gate level instead of in a descent. She began her turn well before she entered the gate proper, so that she actually swung around one pole gracefully, already heading for the second gate. She sailed smoothly through that as well, again beginning her turn early, but this time it was a sharper turn, more demanding, upwind. Leya made it well enough, and the third gate with it, but had nothing left to wrench herself around afterward. She flew peacefully out to sea, missing the fourth gate by a wide margin. A few of the spectators applauded her anyway, and her flyer rival could only manage two gates before he landed roughly in the sand. So Leya had her first triumph, though it was not enough to win a pair of wings.

Damen and Arak were announced by the crier. Both of them had trouble. Damen took the gates too fast, and couldn’t recover after the second in time to turn for the third. Arak passed through the second gate too high; the upper edge of a wing grazed the rope, and it was enough to send him off balance and far off course. But even with the two-gate tie, Arak easily retained his wings.

Kerr, surprisingly, also managed a tie. Imitating Leya, he entered the first gate leveled and starting his turn, and handled the second easily enough. But like Leya he had trouble veering upwind into the third, and unlike Leya, he did not manage it. He thumped to a halt in the sand a few yards short of the gate, and the land-bound children rushed in from all sides to help him out of his wings. Jon of Culhall tried to avoid Kerr’s fate by maintaining a higher altitude, but passed over and to the right of the third gate.

“Corm of Lesser Amberly,” the crier was announcing, “Val One-Wing, Val of South Arren,” Then a brief pause. “Maris of Lesser Amberly, flying proxy for Val, Maris of Lesser Amberly.”

She stood on the flyers’ cliff, helpers unfolding her wings, locking each strut in place. A few dozen yards away, Corm too stood and let them work. She looked over at him, and his eyes met hers, dark, intense. “Maris One-Wing,” he called bitterly. “Is this what you’ve come at? I’m glad Russ is not alive to see you.”

“Russ would be proud,” she threw back, angry, and knowing Corm had wanted to make her angry. Anger brought carelessness, and that was his only hope. Seven years ago she had outflown him, in a much fiercer contest. She was confident she could outfly him today as well. Precision, control, reflexes, a feel for the wind; that was all it required, and she had them in full measure.

Her wings were wide and tight, metal humming softly in the wind, and she felt utterly serene and sure of herself. She reached up, wrapped her hands around the grips, ran, jumped, soared. Up she flew, up and up, and she did a loop for the sheer joy of it and then dove, sliding down and down through the air, riding and shifting with the little eddies and currents, angling toward the gates. She was banked sharply and wheeling as she went through the first gate, her wings drawing a silver line from the top of one pole to the bottom of the other, but she stabilized gracefully and swayed the other way for the approach to the second, slid through it fluidly. It was the feel of it, the love of it, not the thought; it was instinct and reflex and knowing the wind, and Maris was the wind. The third gate was next, the difficult upwind turn, but she snapped around easily, quickly, cleanly, then looped above the water to correct her angle on the fourth gate, and she was through that too, and the fifth was a wide lazy downwind turn, and the sixth was almost straight ahead, not a difficult angle at all, but small, so she dropped a little and skimmed low over the sand, her wings taut and full, and the spectators were shouting and cheering.

In a heartbeat it was over.

Just as the sixth gate loomed ahead of her, she hit a sink, a sudden cold downdraft that had no right being there. It pushed at her, clutched at her, just for an instant, but that was long enough for her wings to brush the ground, and then her legs were trailing through the wet sand and she slid along bumpily before finally jolting to a halt in the shadow of the gate.

A small blond girl ran up to her and helped her to her feet, then began folding up her wings. Maris stood breathless and exhilarated. Five, then, five it was. Not the best score of the day, but a good score, and it was enough. Corm trailed Val by such a margin that it would not be enough for him to beat her. He had to humiliate her, crush her, collect two pebbles from each of the judges. And that he could not do.

He knew it too. Disheartened by her flight, he did not even come close. He failed on the fourth gate, a decisive victory for her, for Val. She felt elated as she trudged across the beach, wings folded on her back.